Driving around Minnesota gives novelist Allen Eskens his best ideas

Allen Eskens was driving to a library when he came up with the idea for his new book. The main character is, not surprisingly, a librarian.

Eskens, who lives in Cleveland, Minn., drives to a lot of libraries so he can’t recall which one it was, other than that it was in southeast Minnesota. But he does recall his thought process on the journey.

“I wanted to write about a protagonist, most likely female, who is middle-aged — kind of one of those invisible, blend-in-the-background people. Nobody knows this about her, but she has this incredible history," said Eskens, who created Bosnian American Hana Babić, a librarian in Farmington who is the title character in “The Quiet Librarian.”

Although she appears to be an ordinary person, Hana needed to have an extraordinary backstory, which Eskens discovered when he decided whatever happened to her would have happened in the 1990s. Researching world events, he found the violent Bosnian war from which Hana fled. Then, he sought out two Twin Cities residents who could help him understand the complexities of that war, in which even the way a person spelled their name could mark them for danger.

“One was a professor at the University of Minnesota, Erma Nezirević, who grew up in the Balkans during the war. The other one was a man from the Bosnian community in Minneapolis, Elvir Mujić. These two people were gracious enough to meet with me and talk to me about what it was like during the war,” said Eskens, whose last book was “Saving Emma.” “Their input really helped me understand who this character would have been in 1995.”

For example, said Eskens, “Unlike wars where you have a geographical line dividing one side from the other, this country had Serbians and Bosnians living next door to each other. They would know each others’ backgrounds by their names, and I have a character in the novel named Nura. Her name was originally Mora but I was told, ‘No, Mora is a non-Bosnian name.’ There was so much detail like that I didn’t know.”

Events from her youth in Bosnia, including the deaths of her family, come back to haunt Hana in “Quiet Librarian.” A friend of hers is killed and, while she tries to figure out who did it, dangerous men with a connection to the civil war seem to be hunting her and her friend’s young son, whom Hana is caring for.

Once he felt like he had a handle on Hana’s past, the Minnesota writer still had to discover how it was going to figure into the novel. Often, that meant knowing his research gave Hana humanity but that it wasn’t necessary to share all of it with readers. The more he wrote “Quiet Librarian,” the more Eskens edited out bits of research that were slowing down the book’s brisk pace.

“I want to entertain, inform. But, more than anything else, I want people to feel something. I’m considered a mystery thriller writer but at the beginning, middle and end of all my novels is the story of people,” said Eskens. “If I just write a story with a clever twist and a mystery solved, my story is only half done.”

“The Quiet Librarian” is not the first time Eskens has dreamed up a novel while behind the wheel. In fact, he keeps a voice recorder at hand when he’s exercising and driving because both are places where he’s likely to think of something he can use in his writing.

“That’s when you have a split task in your brain and you’re not forcing your thoughts. If I’m staring at my computer screen or outlining in a sketch book, the ideas sometimes don’t flow as easily as when I’m on a run,” said Eskens, 61, a former attorney.

As he’s writing, the characters become real to him, which is a big reason he’s known for writing stand-alone thrillers, rather than series.

“I put my characters, especially the protagonists, through the wringer,” said Eskens. “With my first novel, ‘The Life We Bury,’ I always knew the protagonist, Joe Talbert, was going to come back but I needed time for him to grow up, finish college and then get beaten up again.”

Although Eskens has no specific plans, it’s possible Hana will get beaten up again, too.

“I want readers to not just like my characters but relate to them, feel like they’d like that person to come back in another story,” said Eskens, who has found himself musing about what might happen next for “The Quiet Librarian.” “I don’t discount [the possibility she’ll get a sequel]. I come to writing as someone with a great capacity for daydreaming. It was the bane of all my teachers but it’s why I’m a writer.”

Who knows? Another Hana story could occur to him while he’s driving to yet another library.

The pieces are certainly in place: A librarian is the hero of “The Quiet Librarian.” Its book launch will be at the place where much of it is set, Farmington Library. And Farmington branch manager Barbara Svoboda even makes a brief appearance in Esken’s book. So you can bet he’ll be in demand at libraries throughout the state.

The Quiet Librarian

By: Allen Eskens.

Publisher: Mulholland Books, 305 pages, $29.

Events: Book launch, 6 p.m. Feb. 18, Farmington Library, 508 3rd St., Farmington. Free. Conversation with Cary J. Griffith, 7 p.m. Feb. 19, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Av., Mpls. Free but registration required.

The Quiet Librarian

By: Allen Eskens.

Publisher:

Events: 7 p.m. Feb. 19, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls. Free but registration required at magersandquinn.com.